Cooking In A Kettle: Perfect Soft-Boiled Eggs
This is the first in a series of blog posts I intend to post about my experimentations with cooking in a kettle. I was put on to the idea by…
Devilled Herring Roe On Toast
Herring melts or milts – the soft, creamy roe of male herrings (vastly different from the female ‘hard roe’) – have to be one of the most underrated foods in…
Cooking In A Kettle: Vegemite Soup
This is the second in a series of blog posts I intend to post about my experimentations with cooking in a kettle. I was put on to the idea by…
Courgette Summer Fried Rice
This is a very good way of using up cooked rice from the night before and makes an excellent breakfast. It’s also a good way of using up courgettes from…
Beef Olives – Level 2 NVQ Diploma in Hospitality
They say you never stop learning about food, which is why I’ve just started a Level 2 NVQ Diploma in Hospitality at the tender age of 84.That and also because…
Clam Chowder – Level 2 NVQ Diploma in Hospitality
Week one of my cooking apprenticeship certainly had a ‘surf and turf’ flavour to it. On the morning we made beef olives, we also knocked up another classic from the…
Irish Soda Bread & Tarragon And Roasted Red Pepper Roulade
I went in for an extra college day and joined a chef who needed to tick off his bread “units” for our Level 2 Diploma in Hospitality. I haven’t done…
Bread Pudding – A 30,000-Year-Old Recipe
Bread pudding probably dates back about 30,000 years to when our ancestors first started growing cereal grains. No doubt they would have pounded the grains into a paste with water,…
How To Smoke Salmon In 13 Minutes
This is a dish we knocked up for a function night at the college restaurant – a supreme of salmon smoked in lemon and ginger tea, and then pan-fried until…
Cooking In A Kettle: Cheese And Ham Omelette
I watched a documentary the other night which featured a former jailbird who was giving advice to his wayward, younger brother in an attempt to keep him on the straight…
Bulletproof Recipe For Pate Brisee
This is a classic French pie pastry, which works well for both sweet and savoury dishes. It’s almost the same as traditional short crust pastry – which uses one portion…
Venison And Wild Boar Pie
We made this for a mediaeval banquet for the catering college’s restaurant – I’m not sure what is particularly mediaeval about it. But it is a great recipe nonetheless, and…
January Vegetables And The Healthiest Ways To Cook Them
The following are some of the main seasonal vegetables for January: Kale Type: Leaf vegetable Cooking: Kale can be cooked in a number of ways, including stir frying, steaming, microwaving,…
Chicken And Asparagus Pie
The pastry for this pie comes from one of the apprentices on my cheffing course. He modestly says he’s only good at turning potatoes, and jokes that if he was…
Snakebite Lamb
This is a take on an old English recipe for boiled mutton. You might think I’ve added an unnecessary, not to say dubiously fusion, twist with the tablespoon or so…
Broccoli Stalk Stew
Broccoli stalks, if you ask me, are the best part of the vegetable, and perhaps any vegetable. They can have a sort of pak choi flavour and texture if you…
Vintage Cheddar And Parmesan Leeks
If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, you may be fortunate enough to pull a couple of fat leeks out of the ground for this delicious recipe, as they’re…
Salted Cod And Cashew Nut Curry
This recipe was partly inspired by Cambodia’s national dish, amok – river fish cooked with mild spices and coconut. Amok varies enormously from home to home over there. Most resemble…
Macadamia Nut, Caramel and Nutella Cheesecake
This is Ottolenghi’s heavenly recipe, a rich oozing filling topped with salted buttery caramelised nuts, and a gorgeous HobNob base. It’s a bit of a faff, what with making your…
Mustard Seed Greens
This is a recipe from Madhur Jaffrey -delicately spiced cabbage is cooked down with onions until almost caramelised. It’s healthy, quick, delicious and cheap and goes exceptionally well with rice…